Brainstorms on Twelve Angry Men

    For the project, I'm considering the part  A and the focus on character in Rose's novel. I think role playing is one of the easiest way for students to get practice with character roles, and really getting an in depth perspective on how it's built. I want the first part of my activities to focus on presumptions we make based on appearances. Part one of the first day of this mini-unit would be to present a series of faces to the class, and then to themselves they would brainstorm brief phrases and adjectives they would use to describe these people. Then we would go around the room and share anything we noticed or thought about these people to highlight the different perspectives we can have just in one picture. Part two of this class period would be focused more on character building. By first passing out little slips of paper, each class member would have to come up with a character and a trait that doesn't have to do with physical appearance (e.g. a middle aged recovering alcoholic). Then the slips would be redistributed, assigning a completely random character to each student. Then we would set up a sort of makeshift fish bowl activity where questions are presented to the characters about their personalities and past, and we start a discussion where they have to stay in character no matter what. To end the fishbowl (this part I haven't quite figured out) I would show them a picture, or give them a situation, and their homework would be to write creatively about what their character think happened in this photo/situation.
    For the second day of this mini unit, I would have them share their stories about what they thought happened and again point out the difference. But then I would tell them "the truth" and have them acknowledge the differences in their version and what is perceived to be the truth. For the rest of class, I would want them to do an independent journal about how their character's past shaped their version of the truth and be prompted by the question "why did I (the teacher) make you think of a past for your character and then introduce you to the situation?" I haven't figured out yet an example I would give at the end of the fishbowl that could be considered "the truth" (hence the quotes). I also don't like how completely wide open the create a random character part is. In a high school classroom, that kind of freedom can cause havoc in one of two ways: either students will get too inappropriate/outlandish with the roles, which could be interesting, or they could just stick to the generic and make it less fun for a big group discussion. The other thing I'm not too sure about are the prompts that would be in the fishbowl to keep the discussions flowing. I remember from my own high school experience that discussion is not easy to keep going with students.